Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 3 Comments

Oh Look, Stars

Peter Pan:
Jack, Maggie, all you have to do is think one happy thought, and you’ll fly like me.

Maggie:
Mommy.

~ Hook (1991)

What does one do when they get insight about something that they don’t have the time or energy to act on?
I’ve got all i can handle and then some – no more. But why else am i continuing this work, in spite of the world doing us dirty, if not for these moments? Epiphanies are a gift for the hardworking seeker. An ointment for the wounded wanderer. A Turkish coffee on a Monday morning. Like a birthday sparkler, it illuminates but briefly. Its magnesium flash leaves an imprint behind my psychic lids; i shall write of it before it fades.

My therapist (whom i now call Ms T) pointed out that my #1, most developed and powerful alter, was born out of my brain as a child. This means, despite her purpose in being created and how she presents, she is a child herself. As are all my Bits N’ Pieces.
They’re a child’s idea of what a grownup should be, but they aren’t adults. They’re children created in a child’s mind.
A revelation.

I carried that with me after our therapy session ended. It was all i could think about for hours. It flooded me with compassion for my system – something i’ve struggled with over the years i’ve been consciously interacting with them. It’s been a challenge to know them, and then to foster trust in them, so that i might take my proper place as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer™ of this whole shebang.
My crazy kaleidoscope of a brain.

While i was deep in thought and processing what i’d learned, my son checked in with me.
He’s grown and has been through more than i’d wish for him.
I’m thinking about how my people are kids, and it softens my heart. I see them in a way i hadn’t, heretofore. My son approaches me, looking for connection.

I’ve known for most of my children’s lives that i struggle with affection. I love them so much, but the abuse made me avoid touch.
I only figured that out through therapy, in retrospect.

So my youngest son is approaching me for physical contact. A hug. He’s my huggy bear. My older 2 weren’t as touchy. I don’t know if it’s the way they are or the way i made them. I will accept responsibility for whatever they discern…
The thing is, he’s always been affectionate with me, and has helped me overcome my fear of touch with his innocent, open, and consistent reaching out to me for connection.

I knew it was my job to meet him where he was at. This latest round of therapy has taught me how important that is to a child’s development. I’m learning that connection is everything. Whether good or bad develops from it is not the lesson for me. My children will be, regardless of my influence, who they choose to be. It doesn’t matter if their choices are conscious and informed or not. I don’t know if it’s fair or not, either.
I’m just here –in all my glorious imperfection– to help where i can. That involves acknowledging my flaws and shortcomings.

My mother never said sorry to me, not one time.
Years ago i figured out how much an apology would’ve meant to me.
I’d have let it all go in an instant. I just wanted her to love me. I’d have forgiven her anything and everything.
It dawned on me, and i saw how children need to connect as much as they need to eat. More, even.
And then i saw my greatest failing as a parent.

I was unable to meet my children in their most vulnerable place. The place inside them where they needed my touch: loving touch, comforting touch, supportive touch, playful touch, healing touch. I couldn’t touch my children often enough, or deeply enough, or meaningfully enough. And i wonder what that’s done to them. I think on their personalities, and i must consider that their common threads may be because they needed more touch from me than i gave them. None of them are an open-book type – just like me. They are all intensely private and somewhat introverted – like me. They’re guarded, they have a somewhat negative view of humans, they aren’t terribly surprised by the darker sides of human nature, they all enjoy gallows humour, they bond with only a very select few.
Just like me.

Look, i’m not saying these qualities are good or bad ones.
I’m also not saying i was a terrible parent. I neglected them in ways, and i failed them utterly in others. I think most parents do to some degree. None of us are perfect. I think our job as parents is to be good enough. That’s it; we’re all flawed humans who bring our baggage into all our relationships. I know that i did my best. Unfortunately, i’m not sure my best was good enough.
That’s for my children to judge though, not me.

The thing is, as i learn and grow and heal from the terror i lived through as a child, i would be remiss if i didn’t also cast a critical eye on my own parenting. I’m still their mom and will always be, even when we are separated by death. I will be as good a mom as i can be, and as i become more this/less that and just a better and more useful human, so too will that include my role as mother.
As i put myself back together after being torn apart by my own parents, my capacity to fulfill that role for my precious boys will expand, and i will fill all the new spaces inside me with love and light.

I may not have been a terrible mom, but i will be a better and better mom until the day i cease to be anything but a memory.

That now includes being physically available to them, whenever they want it from me. Not just hugs, but physical warmth. Consoling and soothing touch. Play, too.
I may be late addressing the need, but my hope is that it’s not too late.
I will be physically available to meet them where they’re at, and i will provide motherly connection.

Connection with my children.
I have the time and energy for that, FOR THEM, no matter what.

So I know I’m not alone
When I’m here on my own
Isn’t that a wonder?
When you’re alone
You’re not alone
Not really alone

~ John Williams, When You’re Alone (Hook)

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 1 Comment

Slow

Unreasonable haste is the direct road to error.
~Molière

I’ve flown by the seat of my pants my entire life. Trauma was a regular part of my life from birth, until i was finally free from my mother around the age of 21. Although i sought treatment over the years that followed, i didn’t find anyone that helped me significantly until around 45. It’s only been since then that i’ve been able to properly identify my many trauma-based reactions to typical life situations. These responses have been generally dissociative, with hair-trigger responses to stress and anxiety manifesting regularly as fight, flight, or freeze. More than half my time since then was initially spent dealing with more chaos, rather than less, and the work left me so exhausted that i spent a couple of years just hermitting and resting.

The last few years i’ve built a fairly normal life for myself, and that took some planning. As you might guess after reading my first paragraph, that did not come naturally to me. I needed to be told how to do it step-by-step, incrementally, and to see it modeled, and to be given the grace and the freedom to practise it safely, and fail quite spectacularly, too. Because there’s so much going on in my head, i can be quite scattered. I’m one of those people that regularly loses track of what i was saying or doing, the reason usually being that i’ve been tripped up by a voice in my head. Something/someone on the inside has caught my attention, and i’m now more focused on my inner world than my outer.

Then there was my mother, who wasn’t into the teaching part of parenting. Fortunately, i had the same babysitter for my first 6yrs, so she taught me how to play and how to socialise with other children. My grandmother was a teacher, and she gave me reading, writing, and basic arithmetic, and along with Grandpa, some normal and fun family activities. What my mother taught me was by example, and it was a crash-bang-tinkle course in how to be manipulative and dysfunctional. I knew nothing about planning for the future, or setting goals, or organising my living space, activities, chores, or events. No people skills save charm, which was used strictly for manipulation. She taught me how to hide in plain sight. I was a tumour dressed up like a cupcake. Although i’ve always been a good person, i did things that weren’t good because that’s what i was taught, and i treated people poorly sometimes, because that’s what i knew. I looked down on others, because part of the way it’d been so easy to keep quiet about my upbringing, was that i was indoctrinated to believe i was special; different than the people around me, and better. Others wouldn’t understand our ways – they didn’t belong, and they weren’t smart enough to understand.

I wanted to be liked and accepted so badly. Part of that is a natural human desire, but some of it was because, deep down, i desperately wanted to be rescued, and also because i’d been trained to seek approval. Of course, at the very bottom of the well, was a little girl starving for love and affection. I was too dysfunctional for anything healthy and lasting, though. No one could get to know me well enough for intimacy to develop, as my mother had Rapunzeled me long before i hit school age.

I’ve not digressed – i share this so you might see how the way i was raised was a roadblock to learning life skills from anyone. Back when i was just trying to survive, living an unexamined life, i wasn’t conscious of looking down on people, nor did i know i trusted no one. It simply didn’t occur to me that i could find someone who had what i wanted and ask them how they got it, or even just observe them and try to emulate what i saw. There were many flaws in the way i thought about life and people, and i lacked the insight to see what the problems were. All i knew was that there was something wrong with me. Learning that i was a victim of child abuse opened my eyes to how ill-equipped i was to live life on life’s terms. I saw how abuse had twisted me in some ways, and had atrophied my development in others. Eventually i could see how i kept people far, far away. I was all closed doors and drawn shades.

(You know, as i’m proofreading this, i just had a little a-ha moment! I can see on a deeper level why i had to hide in my house for a couple of years, while i was trying out my new self-knowledge and acquired life skills. I still needed the protection of closed doors and drawn shades around me. It’s like taking your clothes off in front of a new lover. I’m in the bedroom with them and yes, we are going to be intimate, but first time i take my clothes off will be behind this beautiful shoji screen, thank you. We can even light one candle! You’re welcome.)

Having a child was a brutal awakening to how completely disconnected i was, but it was also the beginning of me reaching out to find connection. My son needed me for everything, including affection, and as his concept of himself as separate from me grew, so did his requirement for love and to have his need for attachment be honoured, respected, and nurtured. My son was probably the first person i didn’t fear, the first with whom i had no walls or filters or masks. He was the most amazing, most precious thing i’d ever known, and my love for him shone a stark light on how i was unable to meet some of those needs to the level he seemed to be wanting. Needing.
I began looking to other parents for cues on how to do this. I took a couple of weeks-long parenting courses. I hired money management. I went back to school. I walked away from some troubled friendships and i began purposely building relationships with more functional and successful people.

As someone with my particular set of mental challenges can do, i took this new information that i could learn from modeled behaviour and ran with it. I would zero in on someone who had what i wanted (like 12-step groups had been teaching me), and then i would do what i saw them do, or what they told me they were doing.
Some of it i just couldn’t get the hang of though, like commitment, discipline, and sticktuitiveness. I continued to look for a good therapist or group, but had little success, and couldn’t tolerate any of them for the length of time required to build relationships.

A ridiculously long mania in my late 30s taught me that what was missing, in part, was pacing. I was impatient for results, i was pushing too hard and going too fast. I was caught in a chaotic and humiliating cycle of 3 steps forward and 3 back – 4 if i got mad. I was learning how my brain worked and how to deal with it, and that would have to come before i’d have the cognition and the skills to be able to slow down; to figure out where i wanted to go, and the best route for me to get there.

After half a century i seem to be heading in the right direction.
Of course it has to be playground zones the whole way.
There’s children all over the damn place.